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PBS Kids Sprout
Universal Kids (formerly PBS Kids Sprout and Sprout) is an American pay television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group, a division of NBCUniversal, all owned by Comcast. The channel was launched on September 26, 2005. The network was first launched as a joint venture between PBS, Comcast, Sesame Workshop, and HiT Entertainment devoted to children's television programming aimed at a preschool audience. Following Comcast's purchase of NBCUniversal, the company gradually bought out the remaining owners' shares in the channel, reaching full ownership in 2013. The network's operations were subsequently relocated from Philadelphia to New York City and the "PBS Kids" name was dropped from its branding. The network rebranded under its current name on September 9, 2017 to take the branding of sister company Universal Pictures, expanding its primetime programming to focus on a wider youth audience aimed at older children, while continuing to broadcast preschool-oriented programming during the daytime hours. Universal Kids is available to approximately 56 million American pay television households (48.2% of households with television) in the United States as of January 2016 (when it was still primarily known as Sprout) which used to be arranged for kid's ages 9-16. While the Sprout preschool programming is arranged for children's ages' 3-7. Background Sprout traces its origins to the PBS Kids network (referred to as PBS Kids Channel in press materials), which launched on September 6, 1999 coinciding with the rebranding of PTV, PBS’ children’s programming block, to PBS Kids that day. The PBS Kids feed was available on high-tier subscription providers, and was also offered to PBS member stations for use on a "cablecast" service (a subscription-based local channel provided by the member station) or for use on the member station's free-to-air analog channel to provide a portion of the daytime PBS Kids programming on the station. Participating stations were required to pay an annual fee of $1,000 to use the feed. At launch, 32 PBS member stations had signed up to use the service. The channel was created, in part, to compete against Nick Jr. and its sister network Noggin (which now shares its name with the Nick Jr. block). Because the pay TV rights to the Children's Television Workshop’s program library were owned by Noggin (which CTW owned a 50% interest in at the time), the channel did not broadcast any CTW programming, including Sesame Street, a longtime staple of PBS' children's programming lineup. The CTW-produced Dragon Tales, which premiered on the same day as the launch of the PBS Kids Channel, was the only exception to this. The channel was not successful and had only reached 9 million households as of 2002, compared to Noggin's 23.3 million households at the time. Once the channel shut down, many member stations which had been using the PBS Kids channel on their cablecast channels or free-to-air digital subchannels continued to operate their children's channels as local services scheduled independently of a satellite feed, while other member stations shut down their kids channels entirely and redirected viewers of those channels to the newly launched PBS Kids Sprout. PBS later revived the PBS Kids Channel on January 16, 2017, this time with an online streaming option in addition to utilizing largely the same distribution methods that had been used for the original channel. History As PBS Kids Sprout / Sprout (2005-2017) On October 20, 2004, PBS announced that it had entered into a joint partnership with cable provider Comcast, and production companies HIT Entertainment and Sesame Workshop to launch a then-unnamed subscription-based channel aimed at preschool children. On April 4, 2005, Comcast announced that the network would be known as PBS Kids Sprout, launching initially as a branded video on-demand service before launching as a cable network, explained that with this practice, "you get to sample a huge variety of material. You'll get all these smaller shows that translate into something bigger." The network would be advertising-supported, but ads would only air between programs in small quantities, and would be aimed towards parents and caregivers. The linear network officially launched on September 26, 2005, with a reach of around 16 million viewers across Comcast and Insight cable providers. Zoom was the last program shown on the PBS Kids Channel while Boohbah was the first show to air under the PBS Kids Sprout name. The multi-platform approach was designed to appeal to different viewing habits, with the linear channel focused on variety, and the on-demand services focused on instantaneous access to specific programs. The linear service was designed around dayparted programming blocks, featuring activities and other feature segments presented by on-air hosts. Some of these segments were designed to promote supplemental content (including activities and interactive features) on Sprout's website. Sprout's scheduling also eschewed the practice of combining multiple episodes of short-form children's series into a single half-hour episode with interstitial segments for U.S. broadcast, electing to air such programs individually in their original format. The network would be advertising-supported, but ads would only air between programs in small quantities, and would be aimed towards parents and caregivers. During commercial breaks, many advertisements were aired for identity theft, paying taxes, and car insurance, although there were commercials aimed for kids as well, mostly mail-order toy commercials from As Seen On TV such as Pillow Pets. Effects of Comcast/NBCUniversal merger Comcast acquired a 51% majority stake of NBCUniversal in January 2011, and would assume full ownership of the company in 2013. As a result, Comcast's interest in Sprout was turned over to the company. When Apax Partners sold HIT Entertainment to Mattel on October 24, 2011, HIT's ownership interest in Sprout was not included in the deal and was retained by Apax Partners. In 2012, Sesame Workshop sold its interest in Sprout to NBCUniversal, which in turn later acquired Apax and PBS's shares in the network on March 19, 2013 and November 13, 2013 respectively, thus giving Comcast full ownership. Its operations were then merged into its NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Groupsubsidiary, the "PBS Kids" branding was dropped from the network's name (leaving it as simply Sprout), and operations were moved from Philadelphia to New York City. On July 7, 2012, Sprout began to produce a Saturday morning block for NBC aimed at preschoolers, NBC Kids, along with MiTelemundo, a Spanish-dubbed version of the block airing on sister network Telemundo that airs on both Saturdays and Sundays, which replaced Qubo (a previous joint venture between NBCUniversal, Ion Media, Corus Entertainment, Scholastic, and Classic Media, which was later acquired by DreamWorks Animation and is now, in turn, owned by NBCUniversal), which had been airing on NBC and Telemundo since September 2006. On Sprout's 10th anniversary on September 26, 2015, the network received a brand refresh and shifted focus towards original shows, such as Nina's World, and phased out older acquired shows such as Barney & Friends (which later returned to the network in 2018), Thomas & Friends, ''and ''Super Why! due to the network's licenses for these shows expiring and were replaced with newer acquired shows such as Maya the Bee and Sydney Sailboat. Only two shows that have been on the channel since its launch, Caillou and The Berenstain Bears, remained on the network. Caillou continued to air on the network until March 31, 2019, while The Berenstain Bears continued to air on the network until the channel rebranded into Universal Kids. October 1, 2016, NBC Kids was replaced with the widely-reviled Litton Entertainment's The More You Know educational block oriented towards teenagers 13-16 years old. Since NBCUniversal took over management of the network as shown above, Sprout experienced a network decay by evolving from its initial intent to serve as a home for archived content produced by the partners, and invested more heavily in original programming in order to better compete with fellow preschool-oriented pay-TV networks Disney Junior and Nick Jr., which in turn was also partly made by Sesame Workshop. Under NBCUniversal, programs seen on the network such as The Chica Show gained increased visibility airing on NBC as part of the NBC Kids block. In January 2017, Deirdre Brennan, formerly of Corus Entertainment, was named the new president of Sprout. As Universal Kids (2017-present) On May 1, 2017, it was announced that Sprout would be rebranded as Universal Kids on September 9, 2017. With the rebranding, the network revamped its evening and primetime programming to target pre-teens aged 8-12. Universal Kids continues to broadcast preschool programming, initially retaining the Sprout brand, occupying 15 hours per-day of programming from 3:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET. Network president Deirdre Brennan explained that Universal Kids' new programming would be distinguished from its competitors (Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney Channel), stating that "we're offering something to 2 to 12 year olds that has a slightly different purpose — widening their eyes, opening their minds and celebrating many aspects of being a kid. We have great shows for the preschoolers, which is important, but we needed to grow up with the rest of the family." This change was met with much negative criticism from long-time fans, with many fearing that the rebrand would be similar to Nick Jr's ill-fated NickMom block. As a result, the channel has seen a significant erosion in viewership, with IndieWire reporting a 30% decline in 2017, followed by a 73% drop in 2018. However, Universal Kids seems to be doing anything they can do to win back old viewers. Universal Kids Preschool Universal Kids Preschool acts as the channel's current daytime block, which runs from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time (3:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekends). Up until January 2018, the block utilized the network's former name, Sprout. Deirdre Brennan emphasized that Universal Kids would continue to focus on its preschool programming, explaining that "the greatest thing is, there is nothing to fix there. Sprout is a beautiful brand. If anything, we want to invest more in original production. There is more we can explore there." The preschool shows mixed in with the shows for older kids was initially the target of confusion for some viewers. Prior to the Universal Kids rebranding, the network replaced its long-running morning block Sunny Side Up with Sprout House (renamed Snug's House in 2018), which debuted on August 14, 2017 and is hosted by Carly Ciarrocchi and the new character Snug, a talking dog portrayed by puppeteer Chris Palmieri, through 90-second segments throughout the block. The program was designed to be more flexible to produce than its predecessor, with a varied "tiny house" set with additional areas and camera options. Unlike Sunny Side Up, its segments are pre-recorded rather than broadcast live; supervising producer Vinny Steves felt that the live format was too "limiting", and stated that the new format was also designed to enable the segments to be distributed on digital platforms such as social media. With the launch of Sprout House, the network began to downplay its long-time mascot, Chica, much to the ire of many longtime fans. As a slight consolation though, she will continue to be featured in certain segments (such as Chica at School). Since 2017, the network has been bringing back shows that used to air on its channel when it was originally known as Sprout. The Wiggles returned on June 5, 2017, Barney & Friends returned on December 17, 2018, Bob the Builder returned on April 22, 2019, and The Chica Show returned on May 20, 2019. Programming Category:Companies Category:2005 Category:2006 Category:2007 Category:2008 Category:2009 Category:2010 Category:2011 Category:2012 Category:2013 Category:2014 Category:2015 Category:2016 Category:2017 Category:2018